Officer kills pet dog mistaken for a coyote in Massachusetts town. The owner says it was unnecessary
An animal control officer shot and killed a dog in a Massachusetts town after mistaking it for a coyote in an incident that has outraged the animal’s owner but that local police are describing as a sad mix-up.
The shooting took place on Tuesday after police received a report of a coyote in a residential backyard, said Timothy Labrie, chief of police in Northbridge, Massachusetts. The animal control officer went into the woods to look for the coyote and found what they thought was the animal in a threatening position and shot it, he said.
The officer then further examined the animal and saw that it had a flea collar and that it was a dog and not a coyote, Labrie said. Authorities then tracked down the dog’s owner, he said.
The dog’s owner, Kirk Rumford of Northbridge, said the dog was a husky named Odin, who was less than a year old. Rumford said he felt non-lethal methods could have been used, and that his dog does not look like a coyote.
“My dog would have been the most beautiful coyote ever, on steroids,” Rumford said. “It’s huge compared to that. Look at pictures of what a coyote looks like in Massachusetts and my dog. My dog was beautiful. He kind of looked like a wolf, and there are no wolves in Massachusetts.”
Rumford said he has received a lot of support from the community, and he hopes his story will help prevent further encounters between dogs and authorities. He described Odin as “an idiot” and a “lovable klutz” who had a loving nature and enjoyed playing with other dogs.
Labrie said it was reasonable for the animal control officer to mistake the dog for a coyote, and that the officer will not face any disciplinary action. Dog owners can prevent these types of mix-ups by keeping their dogs safe, Labrie said.
“We do have leash laws. Ultimately, if you can keep your fenced areas safe, keep an eye on your dog and do whatever you can to keep your dog in your yard,” Labrie said. “Also, if your dog has a tendency to wander around in the woods, I would definitely have identification marks on him.”
The shooting occurred as communities around Massachusetts and elsewhere in the country saw an increase in interactions between people and coyotes. One city, Nahant, moved and became the first in the state to contract with the federal government kill coyotes after residents said the animals were killing pets and creating a dangerous nuisance.
Some scientists have said that coyotes are starting to show up in the eastern states increasingly wolf-like properties because they have acquired a position at the top of the food chain. They are also difficult to control.
Remington Moll, assistant professor of natural resources at the University of New Hampshire, led one study published in Ecography this month, which stated that hunting coyotes may not reduce their abundance but may actually play a role in increasing it.
“Intensive coyote removal can obviously reduce populations in the short term, but removal can also result in younger coyote populations with higher reproduction and immigration rates,” Moll said in a statement.
Northbridge, a town of about 16,000 residents about 45 miles west of Boston, has had its share of interactions between people and coyotes, Labrie said. The animal control officer who shot the dog was a veteran officer who has had many encounters with coyotes over the years, Labrie said.
“We have definitely seen a little bit of an increase in coyote calls,” Labrie said. “I don’t know what the cause is.”